Breaking
by GRINtelligencer
Summary: By bits and pieces Break soldiers on toward his goals, even as his body decays around him. 50 sentence challenge for Xerxes Break. Spoilers for up to chapter 43.


**Breaking**

**Rating:** K

**Summery**: By bits and pieces Break soldiers on toward his goals, even as his body decays around him. 50 sentence challenge for Xerxes Break. Spoilers for up to chapter 42.

**Characters/Pairings:** Break, Sharon (Implied Break/Sharon), Oz, Gil, vaguely Vincent, Lady Shelly

**C****omments:** This came from a 50 sentence challenge on which I shamelessly cheated, renamed, and rearranged on. Please read and review. Say which sentence was your favorite!

**Spoilers:** Up to chapter 42, all that's released right now.

* * *

Xerxes Break

1) Speaker

He was like a wounded animal back then, sometimes he would lash out at everyone around him, until on one dared to come close to the madman with with blood dripping from the hole where his eye used to be; but Lady Shelly would always be able to calm him; she just knelt next to him and spoke, in that even, kind voice of hers, until she had gently coaxed him back to sanity.

2) Dangerous

The man was probably one of the most dangerous contractors in Pandora, but it was hard to take Xerxes Break seriously when he was waving about his ridiculously long sleeves, chattering to the doll on his shoulder, or crunching down brightly colored candy; but that was probably the point.

3) Old

Trapped in a body that is more likely to simply stop working before it shows even the first wrinkles, Break never wonders what it would be like to grow old before he dies; to be honest, the idea had never held much appeal to him.

4) Fate

He knows his fate, he has for a long time, ever sense the first time the use of his chain gained him spots of blood on his glove, and Break accepts that he will soon die; oddly enough it is Sharon who has more trouble accepting this than him.

5) Carriage

While he does enjoy teasing Sharon about her taste for younger men in the carriage ride back from Oz Vessalius' eventful coming of age ceremony, Break knows the idea that she will be in the body of a child, even when she should have aged far past that, is one that Shalon has yet to really come to terms with.

6) Magic

Meals with Sharon had a quiet magic to them, the ritual of the meal, and the copious amounts of tea and dessert afterward, pass gently by as they talk of things ranging from important business to meaningless gossip and simply enjoy the familiarity of each other's company.

7) Fans

Sharon learns from a surprisingly young age that the proper application of a fan to the side of Break's head has a wonderful way of focusing her rather wayward comrade.

8) Splash

A splash of blood on his necktie gone unheeded, a glove hastily exchanged for another that doesn't quite match, a tired look in his eye, a certain unintended lack of coordination, Sharon knows all the signs that Break has been fighting, even when he tries to hide it from her.

9) Dolls

She's a useful tool, little Emily on his shoulder, she can 'speak' things that he would never be so incautious as to say, she can be another prop in his little act of insanity, a bit of company, all wrapped up in a little doll perched on his shoulder.

Contentment

With a sigh of contentment Break leans back in his chair, regarding the newly renamed Raven, collapsed on the coach, the stain of mastering the raven chain of the Nightray family having exhausted him; Break munched happily on his lollipop, the boy was an excellent pawn.

11) Money

Raven is positive that Break spends all his Pandora stipend on sweets and cakes and candies, but the truth is that the cost of sweets is minimal, but the illusion they give him is priceless.

12) Sleep

One would expect a person such as Break to sleep in the ridiculously silly matter that he did almost everything else in, but Sharon rather thinks he just looks tired when he sleeps; as if his body remembers in those few moments of inattention that it is in fact quite worn and old.

13) Clown

When Oz meet Break for the first time --no technically it was the second time-- he hadn't been sure what to make of him, most of him wanted to label the man a hopeless clown, erratic, crazy, and impossible to predict, but then he noticed exactly how clever Break was, the cold glint in his eye, and the way he struck out at Alice with with no mercy, and knew that there was more, much much, more to Break than there seemed to be.

14) Milk

Break thinks about that saying about spilled milk frequently; sometimes he just can't help the damage that happens to the people around him as a result of his plots, but he rarely lets himself feel guilty for it.

15) Offer

Even though he made the offer bluntly, with nothing to sweeten it or mask the blatant manipulation he had planned for them, Break knew it was an offer Oz couldn't refuse.

16) Stand

Alice sees through the stupid clown's act fairly quickly, but then again, she is a chain, she can sense the power lurking in the idiot, that is why she is careful never too stand too close to him, just in case the idea of destroying her drops into that empty head of his.

17) Desk Lamp

When Break makes his exit by folding himself into the shade of a desk lamp and vanishing, Gil decides he really, _really_ wants to know exactly how he does that.

18) Clean

When Oz seemed to be upset about what Break had said, Gil was quick to assure him that Break was a pointless idiot, clean and simple; but Oz was not as stupid as he sometimes pretended to be, and he could tell Break was a force to be reckoned with.

19) Blood

Break treats it as if is a matter of no great importance, calmly wiping the blood away from the corner of his mouth as if it is only a minor annoyance and nothing more; Gil is disturbed by the thought that maybe that was because he honestly didn't care what happened to him, as long as he accomplished those goals of his.

20) Quest

The smell of black roses permeated his room, and Break suddenly remembers what vengeful anger feels like as he carefully puts the horse chess piece down and leaves to rescue the princess from the rat; he is after all, a knight.

21) Brush

He kisses her hair quite often, lifting a lock to his lips with the wicked grin of his, a quick touch to the of the top of her head when she tries to lecture him, but the kiss he brushes against Sharon's hair before he does as Vincent demands and destroys Cheshire's bell, the key to what he has been searching for so long is… different. Almost tender, almost loving.

22) Childish

It was odd how childish she looks as Sharon sobs into his shoulder after her kidnapping, her little girl's face utterly heartbreaking as tears run down her cheeks and she cries about how she was unable to help him, never mind that she almost died because of him, and he once more remembers that she is not a adult stuck in a young body like him, but a child still.

23) Lying

Break always claimed to be a selfish person, only living for himself, only caring for himself, but Oz looked at the way he protected Sharon, at the way he pulled Gil out of danger, at the way he smiled when he bickered with Liam, and knew that Break was, whether he knew it or not, lying when he said that.

24) Seven

Vincent hates that Hatter more than almost anyone else, if it was in his power, he would have killed him seven times over.

25) Wind

Break loved to wind up Liam, if only to laugh at the faces that he makes as he shouts and tries to lecture him.

26) Sleeve

There's something subtly horrifying to Liam about the casual way Break shakes back his long sleeve as he began to cough, so that the blood he brought up would not stain the sleeve of his coat.

27) Relaxation

Rarely Break would forget, or be tired, and his little act would slip and his real face, with it's terrifying seriousness and cold, uncaring eyes, would peek through; but then, in the next moment, that relaxation would be gone, and the smile would come back on, pulled over his face like a mask.

28) Tattoo

Liam has never seen anything quite so ugly as that contractor's tattoo on the chest of someone he had considered to be a friend.

29) Cold

Oz's voice is colder than Gil has ever heard it before as he asks Rufus Barma if he wants to arrest Break as criminal; Break might have used them, but he was _their_ idiot clown, and because of this Oz would protect him with every bit of influence he had.

30) Explanations

Break might have tamely sat and told them the story of his time in the Abyss, but Oz had a sneaking suspicion that he had left out some _very_ important parts; he just hoped that whatever it was that Break had omitted, that is wasn't something that would get them all killed.

31) Knowing

Now that Liam knew this was his second contract, so much made sense about Break, like a blurry and indistinct image seen through a telescope, now abruptly twisted into sharp, clear --horrifying-- focus.

32) Try

Break sees the little Sinclair girl he once walked away from in Sharon sometimes, though this time, he tells himself, he will try to be a better knight to his princess.

33) Song

This second life was a song, one Kevin didn't know very well yet, but gradually he was learning little bits, a handful of notes, a few bars, at a time --the ridicules smile, the coat slipping off his arms, the doll on his shoulder, the candies, ah the endless candies-- and now the piece entitled Xerxes Break was almost complete; now he would have to just see how long he could make this tune last.

34) Hurry

They all know that things are getting very, very bad when Break hurriedly, almost aggressively, diverts any queries about his health before they are uttered.

35) Funeral

He has his own planned; of course, he has for years now, ever since the first hints that his body might be giving out, and Break now just hopes that he won't be attending any other ones before his own.

36) Loss

The gradual loss of his sight was unexpected, Break had thought he had more time left, but as the world started to fade into indistinct blurs of color he realized, to his surprise, that he had almost none left.

37) Everyday

It was such an everyday, normal gesture, Break reached for the cake on the tray in front of him, and closed his hand around… the air just a little to the _left_ of the cake; it was quickly covered up and a moment later the cake was in his hand, but Liam frowned to himself, a suspicion blooming in his mind even as he felt a cold, sinking dread form in his chest.

38) Scent

Chains like her have an excellent sense of smell and to Alice Break has always smelled like blood, thick and coppery and bitter, like a penny on her tongue; though she has to wonder if most of the blood she smells on him is his own.

39) Inside

Liam hastily got rid of the inquisitive --and surprisingly observant-- Oz, closing the door in his curious face; inside the bedroom he leaned his forehead against the door for a moment, then turned to face Break, who was wrapped in his blanket, and the confirmation of a truth he really didn't want to be confirmed.

40) Expectation

Break always expected to be there in the end, when Glen Baskerville is defeated, the truth of the Tragedy of Sablier is laid bare for all to see, the Will of the Abyss' wish is granted; but more and more he is beginning to suspect --fear-- that he isn't going to last that long.

41) Morning

Huddled under the blanket, Break smiled at Liam, trying to see the expression on his face with his ruined sight, knowing that this morning marked the beginning of the end of his little farce.

42) Ready

Break thought he was ready to die; but now that the process was well and truly started, he finds that he wasn't as ready as he thought.

43) Mundane

He said his body was withering so causally, as if it meant almost nothing to him -- "Didn't you know?" he said, like it was some mundane piece of gossip-- but that was just Break, Liam knew, the more he trivialized something about himself, the more important it usually was.

44) Selfless

After the door had slammed shut and Liam had stomped away Break smiled to himself, a small reflective smile, the world of manipulations he moved in every day had made him forget it was possible for someone to do something for another for the sake of friendship and not because it gained them something; "Thank you, Liam," he murmured, though the man was long gone.

45) Hours

Hours of trying to use his chain to sense the room only gained his bruised arms, bloody fingers, and an aching head, but Break forced himself to practice through the pain; because he only had three days to master this before he was expected to take up his duties again, and he was not about to be responsible for making _her_ cry.

46) Lunch

Sharon dined with Break on the day he officially recovered from the power he had used in Sablier and returned to duty and though he acted quite normal all through the lunch, stuffing himself with cakes and chattering happily away about trivialities, she _knew_ that there was something wrong with him.

47) Hazy

Every morning since Sablier, Break holds a hand in front of his face as soon as he wakes up, seeing if it was the morning he knew was coming; the morning when he woke and the blurry, hazy patterns that are all he can see of the world are gone, replaced by darkness.

48) Carpet

The glove, white linen contrasting starkly with the red blood on the palm, dropped to the carpet, as Break took up another glove and slipped it on; he had to be careful, he mustn't make Sharon cry --she would surely cry if she had any inkling how many gloves he was ruining with blood these days-- and if he didn't want to be late to lunch he was going to have to leave right now, and hope she didn't notice his gloves didn't quite match.

49) Versus

Gil was not, and would never be, a match for Break in a fight, he lacked the ruthless streak Break had, and so the one time they fought, he lost.

50) Paintbrush

With all the care of an artist wielding a paintbrush Break creates his master plan, working in Raven so he fitted in with the pattern, carefully smoothing over the discrepancies caused by Oz Vessalius and B-Rabbit, creating pointed blank patches in case Shalon decided to try to do some painting of her own, deliberately shading himself with bright and, most importantly, _distracting_ colors, and weaving his own act and the wish of the Intention of the Abyss in with the lot of it; on the whole, when he sat back and looked at it, he was quite impressed with the elegance his work.


End file.
